


long con

by marcceh



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Denial, Falling In Love, M/M, Pre series, as per usual, fluffier than the premise suggests, up to mid s2 ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 05:28:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20736953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcceh/pseuds/marcceh
Summary: Jim and Mycroft got involved much earlier than anyone realized. Jim is not happy when Sherlock complicates matters.





	1. Chapter 1

Jim Moriarty fiddles with a cloth napkin and looks around the room.

“This is where you conduct business? Not particularly clandestine. Or inspired…” he comments, before looking at his lunchmate - or, well, his potential new boss.

Mycroft Holmes is barely 30 but dresses a century older, with his waistcoat and pocket watch and designer gloves. He unfolds his own napkin, watching Jim placidly in return. 

“No, this is where I bring foreign dignitaries I need to impress,” Mycroft says. It’s the restaurant of a five-star hotel, and it is packed. 

Jim laughs humorlessly. 

“Show a lot of them around, do you?” For all intents and purposes, he’s a mere web analyst; he helps businesses better market milk to mothers or flowers to forgetful husbands. 

Mycroft Holmes doesn’t believe this one bit.

“Between your roster of clients and your ability to stay off the radar, I believe you have more information than you’re capable of making  _ use _ of on your own,” Mycroft says.

Jim scrunches his mouth up in a smile. “Clients, you mean the grocery chains and department stores all trying to build better websites these days? Web 2.0 and all? Sure, I’ve got more information than they need.”

Neither of them believe that’s what they’re here to talk about. Mycroft gives him a very tired look, as if Jim were a small child asking whether they were ‘there yet’ for the hundredth time since departure on the road.

“What I’m saying is that this arrangement could be beneficial to us both,” Mycroft says.

Jim gives him a skeptical look.

“The reason you haven’t taken much of your earnings is precisely because you have no intention of getting caught, obviously, but beyond that one might surmise something else just as obvious.”

“And what is that?”

“You’re not in it for the money.”

Jim sits back, slowly. 

The waiter arrives with menus and a wine list, and departs quietly.

“What am I doing this for?” Jim says in a rare moment of transparency. Mycroft gives him a pointed look - the nature of his remark answers his own question.

“I believe you’re bored, Mr. Moriarty, and bored still you have become once you mastered the art of the perfect crime, hm? I’m offering you a way, not out exactly, but up,” Mycroft says. 

The crick in the jaw tells Mycroft he’s at least vaguely interested.

“And who are you that you have the clearance to authorize these dangerous spy games, Mr. Holmes?” Jim asks with a joking smile.

He clears his throat. 

“I assure you, my superiors have no idea the deal I’m trying to broker,” Mycroft says dryly. That catches Jim’s attention.

“No, in fact, they don’t believe you exist. That’s how well you’ve covered your tracks,” Mycroft says. His frustration is honest, and that much Jim can tell.

“And how did  _ you _ find me?” Jim asks. “White pages?”

“Oh no, that would be telling.”

Jim blinks in surprise, but is interrupted by the waiter returning for their orders. Mycroft orders a seafood dish and Jim pretends to puzzle over his menu before asking for “whatever he’s having.”

He looks Mycroft Holmes up and down - the man acts as if he doesn’t have a single nerve, he’s so composed. He’s got to be either brilliant, or incredibly stupid.

He is tall in a way that is more awkward than imposing, and definitely not your standard intelligence operative. No, he looks more like a cartoon, an eccentric academic-type, rather than the cloak-and-dagger spymaster his proposition suggested him to be. As unexpected as Mycroft Holmes has thus proven to be, Jim has yet to decide if he is a bumbling idiot, and whether he would be a useful one at that.

“And what exactly  _ are _ you offering me, Mr. Holmes?”

“What I am offering, Mr. Moriarty, is the chance to be ostentatious.” That too, was unexpected.

“In exchange for intel,” Jim says. 

Mycroft gives him a pointed look.

“The people you choose to associate are yours to deal with, but the people they associate with - well let’s just say it’s six degrees of separation, shall we?”

“You, me, Putin?” Jim laughs, for real this time.

“Oh, Mr. Holmes, you’re looking to run a very dangerous game.”


	2. Chapter 2

They have a drink. They  _ shouldn’t, _ both of them know they shouldn’t be meeting, much less  _ in public, _ but they have a drink. After all, their absolutely ludicrous plan is going off without a hitch. They deserve a drink. 

It’s the sort of place with thick wooden walls and plenty of cigar smoke and neither of them quite fit but they’re more than capable of appearing so. Jim wonders where Mycroft would have suggested, had he picked the location. He’d asked as a joke, sort of. He was immeasurably pleased when Mycroft agreed.

They have a drink - Jim wants more.

His eyes slide over to Mycroft and they linger. He wonders what sort of a rebuke he’ll get. A polite act of ignorance? Disgust? Mycroft Holmes does not seem like the type of man who prefers to mix business with pleasure. He is so awfully detached.

“What would you say if I told you I had a room across the way?” Jim asks, peering curiously at Mycroft’s expression.

It doesn’t change much, perhaps gets a little pensive. Then Mycroft folds his hands, and Jim laughs at the formality of it all.

“I like you, Mr. Moriarty,” Mycroft starts. Well that’s not what he expected at all. It shuts Jim up. “And I would like very much to take you to dinner sometime.”

Jim swirls his drink absently. There’s an odd feeling welling up in him, and hell, why not ride that wave?

“Not that stupid place you take diplomats?”

“No.”

Jim leans in, then hovers. 

“Can I kiss you?”

“I’d like that.”

.

Jim watches him undress. It's not a strip tease, but neither is he rushed, and it is incredibly arousing. Mycroft Holmes willingly divesting himself of those beautiful, pristine layers in order to lie with him. 

He’s waited three dates for this. Mycroft Holmes seems intent on  _ courting _ him. 

Jim is...well, Jim is undecided. He’s not going to fool himself thinking his interest doesn’t lie beyond a quick fuck, but frankly he has no plan for where this is going. Should he play up the wooed lover, and to what end? There’s no corrupting a man as Macchiavelian as Mycroft Holmes, it’d be like trying to dilute the salt out of the ocean with buckets of well water. Would the threat of rejection be any sort of incentive? he wonders. Mycroft will surely behave like a perfect gentleman should Jim tell him he doesn’t want to see him like this anymore. The relationship is too new for otherwise.  _ Relationship.  _ Jim wants to gag. 

He reaches for Mycroft to tug him closer to the bed. Whatever this is, it’s the perfect thing to help him stop thinking. 


	3. Chapter 3

Mycroft takes his time, kissing every notch of Jim’s spine down from his neck to tailbone. Jim threads his fingers through Mycroft’s hair until he can’t, infuriated by this bundle of paradox.

They’re  _ celebrating.  _

Barely a day after Mycroft tells him his team is getting close, and that he and Jim should lay low, the man lures him into a hotel room to do unspeakable things to him.

“What would your superiors say if - ah, if they knew the reason you’re  _ so _ good at your job is because you’ve got a criminal in your pocket?” Jim says. 

“Well, they’re hardly angels themselves,” Mycroft mutters.

“No, but you are,” Jim breathes into the pillows. This indecipherable, inaccessible man. Being with Mycroft is like being in the eye of a storm; quiet and impossible, protected from the raging chaos of everything else crumbling to pieces. Jim knows if he lets go, or if Mycroft should let him go - he'd crumble too.

“Hm?”

“Nothing,” Jim says, groping around blindly for Mycroft’s hand. 

.

Jim lies on his back, idly tracing a set of teeth marks near his hip. He's trying to decide whether he likes these better, or bruises. 

“Sometimes if it weren’t for you, I might forget I can still feel things,” he says, light and still a little breathless.

Mycroft stops dressing to glance over, and then at the empty night stand.

“Jim, did you remember to take your pills?”

Jim toys with the idea of lying, then figures it won’t procure any worthwhile outcomes.

“Yes. I think so.” Mycroft doesn’t trust him with to fill his own prescriptions, which is laughable, because if he really wanted to - well.

Jim turns his head, so he can watch Mycroft finish dressing, but otherwise doesn’t budge.

“Leave the tie,” Jim says.

Mycroft slows in threading it through its knot and considers. 

“Please,” Jim wheedles. Mycroft relents.

Mycroft is such a jumble of contradictions; detached and a bit lazy, but also actually quite ambitious. And for such a self-centered man, Jim thinks, he’s a surprisingly good caretaker. It’s always when he’s got the most on his mind that he devotes to Jim his full attention.

He leans over to give Jim another kiss and then a reminder of a later dinner date before he leaves. Jim’s fingers itch to pull him back down, pin him to the bed. Instead he stays frozen in place, doesn’t budge an inch, not even when Mycroft brushes the back of his hand to his cheek.

Mycroft’s incredibly prescient; Jim wonders if that’s why he’s so good at reading Jim as if he was some sort of special interest. Sometimes he sees he’s getting bored, dangling a challenge ahead of him before Jim even realizes he’s tipping over.

  
The door closes as he goes, but Jim smiles to himself, sliding the silk tie between his fingers. He’s never had this before, and is rather warming up to it. He doesn't know  _ what  _ "this" is. The closest thing to a partner, perhaps. Mycroft makes him feel special, it makes him want to  _ do _ something. 


	4. Chapter 4

“You don’t often advise on the business of murder,” Mycroft comments, running a hand absently up and down Jim’s arm.

Jim makes a sort of  _ mmph _ sound neither agreeing or denying, and shift to better look at Mycroft.

“There really isn’t much business in it, violent crime is largely  _ not _ premeditated,” Jim says. “Still, there’s one or two here or there, every month.”

Mycroft’s not looking at him. Jim flicks his nose. Mycroft nips at his hand as it passes. 

“Ah, yes, the serial. Odd fellow.”

“Why, need a colleague offed?”

“What about serial suicides?”

Jim props himself up on an elbow to make a face at Mycroft. 

“It seems like your brand of macabre,” Mycroft says guilelessly. Too guilelessly. 

“You’re being sneaky,” Jim chastises.

.

Still, the idea of serial suicides is mnemonic enough it rolls around in Jims mind for a bit - and then he runs with it. If anything, it’ll make for an interesting diversion.

But it takes a  _ frightfully _ long time for the city’s finest to catch on that there even  _ is _ a murder. It takes so long Jim’s nearly forgot about this little side project number 598 that’s long been set in motion. And worse still, it’s a  _ outside consultant _ who brings to the police’s attention that this is murder. 

Of course Jim pays New Scotland Yard a visit.

He’s not happy with what he finds.

He glares at Mycroft in the darkness of the backseat of the car.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Sherlock Holmes, your  _ brother?” _ he hisses. He wants to wipe that guilty look off Mycroft’s face. It’s hurtful. It’s evidence he’s been  _ cheated.  _

He tells the driver to let him out.

.

Jim doesn’t speak to Mycroft for a month. In that time, he tweaks the game. He studies Sherlock. He advises the serial killer to connect with him when - not if - when Sherlock Holmes makes contact. Jim wants to run a little assessment. 

He can see why Mycroft’s worried about the soldier fellow. Not that he’s been watching Mycroft. 

...no, of course he has.

It’s nearly a month before Jim comes around on the idea. He realizes that perhaps - maybe - this was Mycroft’s odd way of introducing him to the family.

He is a little, tiny bit pleased. 

It is a very interesting family after all. Even - especially - with his brother playing on the other side.

A month without contact is far too long. Jim calls Mycroft the next day. He should at least give the man a chance to explain himself.

.

Sherlock proves useful enough, picking up the trails of crumbs when Mycroft’s superiors refuse to do so. 

Or at least, that’s what Jim thought the point of introducing a third party to the table was. 

It’s what he thought, until Mycroft made a request to Jim to throw a few...inconsequential cases at him, to keep him busy for a while. Sherlock’s been poking his nose into a case Mycroft would like to keep tightly shut. He needs a distraction.

Jim huffs, but complies. It lets him get a bit flashy which, though not his usual fare, is a delight. It’s why he teamed up in the first place, isn’t it?

He starts the detective junior off small, and complicates things as they continue. A quick learner - that he likes. 

Then Mycroft asks about the trainers.

“How did you know about that?” Jim scowls. Mycroft certainly hasn’t seen them. 

“The newspaper,” Mycroft says casually, buttoning his waistcoat. “Sherlock’s first case - well, first  _ police crimes _ , more specifically, he was always making mountains out of molehills in the neighborhood. Anyhow, it’ll rattle him enough to give you a reprieve, if you need.”

It rattles  _ Jim _ enough that he just stares. 

“Is that why you picked me?” It’s absurd, he knows. As if there are criminal kingpins around each corner, and Mycroft has his pick.  _ No one _ does what Jim does. No one.

“Jim,” he says. Just one word. It doesn’t even  _ mean _ anything. It’s not an explanation. 

“What you just - you just wanted to string me around to provide distractions for your little brother? Keep him off drugs, keep him off the terrible, illegal things you do for queen and country, keep him  _ off the couch _ .”

Jim fumes. He does not like not having the upper hand. That’s not true. He doesn’t like not having all the facts.

More than that, he has a feeling he won’t like whatever Mycroft Holmes might be hiding from him.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do, if he doesn’t like it.

.

It takes a flight full of the dead and a terrorist cell to get the two on speaking terms again. 

“I just thought it would be stupid to throw away years of work on some little disagreement on this,” Jim says.  _ Work. _ He wants to scoff at himself. Even after years of practically living with the man he still can’t quite bring himself to call it what it is. Despite that, he’s woken up to the fact that he’s not willing to throw years of this away just because Mycroft’s attention is split.

Mycroft’s hand brushes against his.

“I missed you,” he says. Such simple words, and Jim’s already ready to give in. 

“You have a lot to make up to me for,” Jim warns him. He needs to remind Mycroft that what they’ve had, they’ve had for years before Sherlock came along. 

“Yes.”

.

His brother is a  _ persistent _ one. 

“I need to retire,” Jim says, tone brusque, interrupting Mycroft mid-briefing. Something about the Danish and money missing from arms trafficking and it’s not that Jim isn’t happy to get involved and poke around, but he’s sick of having nearly everything he does be a show - and a losing one at that.

Mycroft sets his file down, very slowly, as he studies Jim.

Jim makes a face.

“Even you have to realize that being a  _ public figure _ as a consulting criminal is bad for business. For each case I throw at Sherlock ten more go unnoticed, but nobody  _ knows that. _ I regret listening to you and letting him on my trail,” Jim says, and that more than anything makes Mycroft wince. 

“He’s in too far to give up his own volition,” Mycroft says, not disagreeing with Jim.

“Then I’ll just have to take him down.”

Mycroft gives him a sharp look.

“What? You can’t honestly say you didn’t know I’ve been planning it.”

“Jim.”

“Think about it. When this is all over, it’ll be you, me, one of those awful snowy mountains you like so much. Ski or whatever. I’ll wait in the cozy cabin by the fire. Take a few weeks with me,” Jim insists. He can see Mycroft thinking it over, warming to the idea. They’ve never taken a proper holiday together. He can also see Mycroft’s running a cost benefit analysis, to losing the infamous Moriarty as part of his arsenal.

Jim holds his breath. And that’s really what he’s always been worried about, isn’t it. Whether he’s worth anything to Mycroft after all. He’s seen how he treats his own brother.

Mycroft’s hand covers Jim’s again, lingers this time.

“Give me two months,” Mycroft says, “to make arrangements. I’m sure you’ll need the time to set the stage for your finale as well.”

Jim plays the words over in his head to make sure he heard right.

“You’ll let him go?” he asks in a small voice.

“Sherlock?”

“Moriarty,” Jim says. His voice doesn’t shake but his hand nearly does. Mycroft squeezes.

“Yes. If that’s what you want, of course.” At Jim’s looks of distress, he adds, “Moriarty has never been as important to me as Jim. Well, not for a very long time.”

“You never  _ said _ .”

And Mycroft finally understands. Jim can see him reevaluating the fights about Sherlock in a new light. He looks unsure whether he should apologize or not. Jim doesn’t know if he wants Mycroft to apologize or not. 

“You  _ are _ important,” Mycroft says in a very small voice, as if this is some terrible, blasphemous secret. This - Jim looks at him and realizes he could break him now. Nine years ago, at that awful lunch meeting, he’d have been ecstatic. How the mighty have fallen. 

Instead he pulls Mycroft across the table toward him for a searing kiss. 


End file.
